Branch_File_State, along with the Branch_Populated flag, give the current status of a Branch.

Branch_Populated

When a Branch is first discovered in the Program or Storage, it is unpopulated in that no information is known if the Branch has children.  When a function is called that refers to the Branch’s children and it is not populated, the populate function is executed.  This will build in memory a list of child Branches that exist in Storage.

Program State

The Branch exists as part of the program but has not been loaded.  During the program start the entire tree of Branches in the code are built as part of the “Program.Shofar” Site.

Intrinsic State

The Branch exists as part of the program but has been loaded.  This may be from a formally Program state Branch or programmatically generated.  These Branches remain in memory once loaded.

Storage State

The Branch exists in storage and is not loaded.  This will occur when the Branch’s parent is populated or when it unloaded from the Memory state.

Memory State

The Branch is loaded into memory.  This could be a new Branch, or loaded from one in the Storage state.

Updated State

The Branch exist in memory and is flagged to be written to storage.  Once written it returns to the Memory state while also existing in storage.

Error_Read State

The Branch could not be read from the storage device.

Error_Syntax State

The Branch was read from the storage device but contained syntax errors.